Equity Leadership Program (ELP)

This article outlines the Equity Leadership Program (ELP) which engages TerraFund champions in capacity-building work around gender and social equity integration.

Introduction to the ELP

Core Focus Areas for the ELP

Selection Criteria for the ELP

Quick Guide to "Responsive" vs. "Transformative" Approaches

Other ELP Components/Offers

Initial Steps for ELP Projects

Introduction to the Equity Leadership Program (ELP)

The Equity Leadership Program is a core component of Terrafund’s capacity-building work. It supports restoration champions (individuals and organizations) to integrate gender and social equity more intentionally into their projects, especially those working with women, youth, Indigenous Peoples (IPs), smallholders, and other marginalized groups. This first cohort is a pilot, comprising a small group of carefully selected champions who are well-positioned to lead and model equity-centered restoration results in their contexts and projects

Purpose of this Guide

The purpose of this guide is to support organizations selected as Equity Leadership Program (ELP) Champions ("Leaders") through a rigorous due diligence and vetting process to effectively engage in the program. It provides a clear and structured overview of the ELP concept, scope, core equity focus areas, and ways of working, and sets out what is expected of the champions in terms of participation, action planning, and results. 

The guide clarifies key equity concepts and outlines how equity approaches and intended outcomes should be explicitly articulated within ELP action plans, with particular emphasis on distinguishing between equity-responsive actions that address immediate gaps and equity-transformative actions that shift power relations, decision-making, and systems for sustained change. It is intended as an enabling and alignment resource to support coherent, ambitious, and results-oriented engagement across the program, rather than an assessment or evaluation tool.

Core Focus Areas for the ELP 

1. Organizational alignment & leadership: how the organization’s mission and leadership reflect a strong equity focus, especially through inclusion of women, youth, or other marginalized groups in governance and decision-making.
2. Community impact & socio-economic outcomes: how the project improves livelihoods and addresses inequities for marginalized groups, such as through income, land access, or leadership opportunities. Emphasize how the project goes beyond general community benefits to specifically include, benefit and empower marginalized groups.
3. Outreach to marginalized groups: the scale and inclusivity of the project’s reach- how many women, youth, and other priority groups directly benefit from its activities.
4. Quality of equity approach in addressing systemic barriers: how the project identifies and tackles root causes of exclusion (economic, legal, social, knowledge-based), with clear strategies for long-term change.

Selection Criteria for the ELP

All TerraFund Cohort 3 proposals were vetted against a rigorous equity criterion, and few were selected for the Equity Leadership Program as they met and demonstrated strong alignment with our goals, reflecting a clear, credible, and well-articulated approach to advancing gender and social equity within restoration efforts.

During the review process, close attention was given to how proposals were structured around the four core ELP components and how effectively they articulated pathways to equitable restoration outcomes. Selected proposals clearly identified the marginalized groups prioritized by the project, explained their social and geographic context, and demonstrated why their inclusion was central to the project’s objectives. They showed evidence of meaningful engagement of these groups in project design and outlined appropriate mechanisms to ensure their continued participation, agency, and protection throughout implementation. Proposals also demonstrated a clear understanding of the systemic barriers faced by these groups, including economic, social, legal, and knowledge-based exclusions, and articulated intentional responses to these barriers within the project’s scope of influence.

In addition, selected proposals clearly show potential in delivering equity-responsive (addressing immediate needs), equity-transformative (shifting power relations and structures), or a combination of both. They articulated intended equity results, such as job creation, improved access to land and natural resources, leadership opportunities, and shifts in social norms, and demonstrated how these outcomes would lead to meaningful and measurable change for the communities served. 

Quick Guide to "Responsive" vs. "Transformative" Approaches

Level	Meaning (with diagnostic questions)	Examples/scenarios
Responsive approach	A responsive approach helps marginalized groups cope with or navigate exclusion, without directly changing the underlying systems, norms, or power dynamics that sustain that exclusion. These approaches are often practical and short-term, but do not shift decision-making or control (ref- CARE Kenya Gender Assessments) Examples: - Is your project offering temporary or surface-level support without changing who holds power? - Are women, youth, or Indigenous Peoples involved only as beneficiaries, not as planners or leaders? - Does your project create access without tackling the barriers that caused exclusion in the first place?	- Hiring youth as casual laborers in restoration projects (e.g., seedling planting) without including them in leadership or decision-making processes.  - Allowing women to bring children to work sites, without addressing the structural burden of unpaid care work.  - Distributing inputs to women farmers (e.g., seeds, tools) without securing land rights or long-term access to restored land.  - In some areas in the GRV, women often participate in tree-planting events but are not part of local natural resource committees or benefit-sharing discussions.
Transformative approach	A transformative approach intentionally shifts power, challenges exclusionary norms, and works to remove structural barriers that marginalize women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and other vulnerable groups. It aims for sustainable, systemic change by changing decision-making, tenure, norms, and roles (ref- CARE Kenya Gender Assessments) Examples: - is your project shifting who has access to and control over land, resources, and decision-making? - Are you working to change cultural or institutional norms that reinforce exclusion? - Are marginalized groups shaping the restoration agenda: not just participating in it? - Are you building long-term leadership, agency, and voice for these groups to influence, so they decide on their needs, and priorities?	- Supporting youth or women-led cooperatives to gain legal tenure over community land and co-manage restoration projects (e.g., women-led water user associations in Laikipia that manage shared resources). - Integrating gender and youth representation into local forest governance boards (e.g., Lake Naivasha Basin community resource user groups). - Revising local bylaws or land governance rules to include equitable inheritance or decision-making rights for women, youth, or Indigenous groups (e.g. Elgeyo-Marakwet land tenure reforms).  - Training women and youth in leadership, conflict resolution, and restoration governance while providing pathways for them to influence policy and investment decisions.

Note: As part of the Equity Leadership Program (ELP), we will expect and actively support your project to move from responsive to transformative levels in their restoration projects. While responsive actions are valuable entry points to provide immediate relief, true equity requires intentional design and action plans to shift the power dynamics, norms, and systems that continue to sustain exclusion. ELP will provide coaching, peer learning, and practical tools to help leaders/project teams go beyond participation ensuring that women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalized groups become co-creators and decision-makers in restoration efforts.

ELP champions will therefore receive support to make this shift, and project teams will be equipped to integrate gender and social equity across the project cycle:

• Assessment and Planning: Conduct a thorough gender and social equity analysis to understand roles, power relations, and systemic barriers that marginalized groups are likely to face within the community and restoration context.
• Design: Explicitly integrate gender and social equity objectives into project goals, strategies, and activities, ensuring that marginalized groups meaningfully shape project plans.
• Implementation: Apply approaches that actively challenge inequality and promote shared leadership, participation, and benefit-sharing.
• Monitoring & evaluation: Develop equity-sensitive indicators, collect disaggregated data, and monitor progress in shifting gender dynamics and increasing empowerment.
• Learning & adaptation: Build in learning processes and feedback loops that help projects adapt and evolve toward deeper gender-transformative outcomes.

Other ELP Components/Offers

• Relational leadership training: We will provide expert-led training and moderated webinars/workshops to deepen understanding of relational leadership, strengthen confidence, agency, and strategic capacity to navigate resistance, and foster personal growth alongside supportive peer and mentorship networks.
• Peer mentor–mentee engagement: Each leader will be supported to mentor up to five (1-5) grassroots women involved in landscape restoration, supporting them to apply leadership and advocacy skills to challenge harmful gender norms, strengthen professional, social, and emotional support networks, and increase leadership capacity and recognition, ultimately fostering the active participation of women in community decision-making and leadership roles.
• Learning and networking opportunities: Facilitate participation in regional and global convenings, provide access to peer-learning platforms and strategic networks, and create opportunities to share models and amplify successful approaches
• Financial support: Provide flexible financial resources to enable the implementation of Action Plans and support equity-aligned restoration activities

Initial Steps for ELP Projects

1. Coordination with TerraFund focal points: Selected ELP Champions will work in close coordination with their assigned Terrafund Focal Point to integrate a dedicated Equity Leadership Program (ELP) budget line into their TF3 project budget. For this two-year pilot, a total allocation of USD 10,000 will be provided per project, to be disbursed in two tranches of USD 5,000 in 2026 and USD 5,000 in 2027.
2. Development of the ELP Action Plans: ELP Champions will work closely with WRI Equity Advisors to co-develop an ELP Action Plan. This Action Plan will guide the implementation of ELP-focused activities over the two-year project period and will be aligned with the allocated ELP budget.

To note: Disbursement of the ELP budget will be tied to the submission and approval of the ELP Action Plans, which will be developed once all Champions have fully onboarded into the WRITerraFund Cohort 3. Participants should not expect ELP funds to be released concurrently with other project disbursements. All ELP funds, however, will be managed and reported through the same procedures and channels as other TerraFund budget lines, and full accountability is required.